Utrikespolitiska föreningen Göteborg

The Society of International Affairs welcomes you to the last screening this semester!

Queen Of The Sun: What Are the Bees Telling Us? is a profound, alternative look at the global bee crisis from the award-winning director of The real Dirt on Farmer John.

Taking us on a journey through the catastrophic disappearance of bees and the mysterious world of the beehive, this alarming and ultimately uplifting film weaves together a dramatic story of the heart-felt struggles of beekeepers, scientists and philosophers around the world.

This spellbinding film explores the long-term causes that have led to one of our most urgent global food crises, illuminating the deep link between humans and bees. The story unveils 10,000 years of beekeeping, highlighting how that historic and sacred relationship has been lost.

The Society of Foreign Affairs, together with Amnesty and Insamlingsstiftelsen för mänskliga rättigheter i Iran presents a theme evening on Human Rights issues in Iran. The evening holds a lecture by Golbarg Bashi, followed by an interesting panel discussion.

Professor Golbarg Bashi: Born in Iran, raised in Sweden, and educated in Britain and the United States, Golbarg Bashi is a feminist historian and activist. She holds a MSc in Women’s Studies, and a PhD in Middle Eastern Studies from Columbia University. She is a faculty member in the School of Arts and Sciences, Rutgers University, where she teaches Middle Eastern and Iranian history. She is currently in the process of publishing her doctoral thesis, titled: “Neither Nativism nor Universalism: A Feminist Critique of the Human Rights Discourse in Iran” as a book.

In this talk, Golbarg will discuss the dire status of human rights in Iran and the ways in which Europeans and Swedes in particular can be of aid in Iranians' quest for democracy while not lending any weight to foreign intervention (a la Iraq and Afghanistan). As a EU-member state the Swedish government has a responsibility in ending the harsh EU sanctions placed on Iran which are hurting the Iranian people while strengthening the regime. Bashi will argue that responsible media representations of Iran together with solidarity from ordinary Swedish citizens and Sweden's trade unions, labor and feminist organisations are far more quintessential and meaningful than any other form of "humanitarian intervention" in Iran.

In the panel discussion:Professor Golbarg Bashi - feminist human rights activist Farzaneh Roostaei – journalist in Iran and EnglandAhoo Shokraei – student activist in IranArdeshir Bibakabadi unfortunately had to cancel his participation, but the program will still continue as planned.

Moderator: Moheb Nayeri – group secretary for Amnesty group 72

Time: 16.30 – 18.30, with a short break where refreshments will be available. Auditorium Sappören.

Do you know how to turn ordinary water into a billion-dollar business? In Switzerland there's a company which has developed the art to perfection - Nestlé. This company dominates the global business in bottled water.

Swiss journalist Res Gehringer has investigated this money-making phenomena. Nestlé refused to cooperate, on the pretext that it was "the wrong film at the wrong time". So Gehringer went on a journey of exploration, researching the story in the USA, Nigeria and Pakistan. His journey into the world of bottled water reveals the schemes and strategies of the most powerful food and beverage company on our planet.

Inga-Britt Ahlenius is a famous Swedish civil servant and has, inter alia, held the position of Under-Secretary-General for the United Nations Office of Internal Oversight Services (OIOS) 2005 - 2010. Ahlenius has also served as Auditor General of the Swedish National Audit Office, as well as in Kosovo 2003 - 2005 under the UN administration.Ahlenius was on the Expert Committee that investigated, in 1999, suspected corruption within the European Commission. It's report lead to the resignation of the whole commission. In 2010 she wrote an internationally recognized, very critical, report to the Secretary General of the UN - Ban Ki-Moon. The report also led to the publishing of the book “Mr Chance”, which Ahlenius authored together with Niklas Ekdahl.

Today Ahlenius is a holder of the Assar Gabrielsson Visiting Professorship at the School of Business, Economics and Law in Gothenburg.During her lecture, Ahlenius will discuss the question of what a good leadership for the UN would look like, and what kind of a leader the UN needs in the future? We will get the chance to hear Ahlenius’ views on the Secretary General’s role, both regarding leadership and in regards to the organizational structure of the UN. If the position of the UN has fallen under Ban-Ki Moon’s leadership, how can the organization move on and get back on its feet?

French philosopher Voltaire once cautioned, “It is dangerous to be right when the government is wrong.” As the powerful new documentary A Whisper to a Roar demonstrates, Voltaire’s warning has never been truer than it is today. Directed by Ben Moses (Taking the Hill: The Warrior’s Journey Home) and inspired by the work of renowned democracy scholar and author Larry Diamond (The Spirit of Democracy), the film spotlights the perilous plight of pro-democracy activists in five countries as they mobilize against authoritarian governments that have been very wrong, in some cases for a very long time.

With remarkably serendipitous timing, the film coincides with a new wave of democratic movements sweeping the globe, focusing on the struggles for democracy in Egypt, Malaysia, Ukraine, Venezuela and Zimbabwe. By turns shocking, enraging and inspiring, it tracks the courageous efforts of pro-democracy leaders and protesters, highlights past and present abuses of power by authoritarian regimes, and in some cases offers a front-row seat to history-forging revolutions the filmmakers had no idea would erupt mid-production.

Based on interviews with activists, politicians, academics and journalists, the film moves across oceans and continents to construct a remarkably consistent story of the struggle for freedom. In Ukraine, it centers on the plight of pro-democracy leader Viktor Yushchenko against the Soviet-era machine personified by Viktor Yanukovych. In Venezuela, it focuses on student activists led by Roberto Patiño against the oppressive regime of President Hugo Chávez. In Egypt, it follows the heroic efforts of young tech- savvy change agents like Esraa Abdel Fattah Ahmed and Ahmed Maher in the Arab Spring overthrow of former President Hosni Mubarak. In Malaysia, it charts the campaign of former Deputy Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim for democratic reform, in the face of repeated efforts by the regime to frame and victimize him. And in Zimbabwe, it follows the blood-soaked road to an uneasy power-sharing deal between pro-democracy leader Morgan Tsvangirai and the horrendously abusive regime of President Robert Mugabe.

What emerges is a complex, multi-faceted and extremely dynamic snapshot of the quest for democracy in the developing world today. With key elections on the horizon in four of the five countries, it’s a still-unfolding story, and one that begs an age-old question: What is it that drives people all across the globe to pursue so passionately the ideal of freedom—in some cases risking their lives in the process? The answer may be best summed up in another quote from the film, this one from French author Georges Bernanos: “Hope is a risk that must be run.”

Some time in the 1960s, in the heart of Africa, a new animal was introduced into Lake Victoria as a little scientific experiment. The Nile Perch, a voracious predator, extinguished almost the entire stock of the native fish species. However, this new gigantic fish multiplied incredibly fast, and its white fillets are today exported all around the world. Huge hulking ex-Soviet cargo planes come daily to collect the latest catch in exchange for their southbound cargo: Kalashnikovs and ammunitions for the uncounted wars in the dark center of the African continent. This booming multinational industry of fish and weapons has created an ungodly globalized alliance on the shores of the world’s biggest tropical lake: an army of local fishermen, World Bank agents, homeless children, African ministers, EU-commissioners, Tanzanian prostitutes and Russian pilots.

Darwin's Nightmare brings us in close for an intimate and at times uncomfortable look at this world, and in doing so this film deftly unpacks the puzzle of globalization in a visually stunning and raw portrait of life on this planet.

Free for everyone! After the screening we will go to a nearby pub to hang out and discuss the movie.

Presented in co-operation with Cinema Politicahttp://www.cinemapolitica.org/Gothenburg

Breaking the Silence, formed in Jerusalem in 2004, is an organization aiming at revealing the reality of everyday life in the Occupied Territories, with the help of testimonies from soldiers who have served in the Israeli military.

Dana Golan, 29, from Herut, Israel, joined the IDF in 2001. She has served as an officer in the Education Corps, at the Hebron Boarder Police Base, and at the Military Prison in Zrifin, until her release from the army in 2004. Dana served as the Executive Director of Breaking the Silence 2009 - 2013. Dana will tell us about the organization, and the book with the same name which was released in Sweden this year.

The global economic and financial crisis triggered the deepest global recession in 70 years and prompted the US government to spend more than 1 trillion dollars in order to rescue its banking system from collapse. Today the full implications of the crisis in Europe and around the world still remain unclear. Nevertheless, should we accept the crisis as an unfortunate side-effect of the free market? Or is there another explanation as to why it happened and its likely effects on our society, our economy and our whole way of life?

Today a new generation of philosophers, artists and political activists are returning to Marx's ideas in order to try to make sense of the crisis and to consider whether a world without or beyond capitalism is possible. Is the severity of the ongoing recession a sign that the capitalist system's days are numbered? Ironically, 20 years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, could it be that communism might provide the solution to the growing economic and environmental challenges facing the planet?

Written and directed by Jason Barker – himself an experienced writer, lecturer, translator and doctor of philosophy – MARX RELOADED comprises interviews with leading thinkers on Marxism, including those at the forefront of a popular revival in Marxist and communist ideas. The film also includes interviews with leading skeptics of this revival as well as light-hearted animation sequences which follow Marx's adventures through the matrix of his own ideas.

What might happen in Venezuela after the death of strongman Hugo Chávez? Which political and economic scenarios can be expected in the run up to the presidential election on April 14th and afterwards? How could Chávez absence affect the course of Latin American integration or even the projection of the "rising Global South"?

Adriana Salazar will try to answer these questions and reflect about the future of Venezuela in a post-Chávez era. Before moving to Sweden in 2010, Adriana worked as political and economic officer at the British Embassy in Caracas, where her main task was to engage with government, opposition, civil society and academia to produce insightful reports about Venezuela for the Foreign & Commonwealth Office in London.

_This page is for both Swedish and English speaking visitors who want to
learn more about what UF activities that are coming up. Arrangements
that are held in Swedish will be written about in Swedish and vice
versa.